Books Do Furnish A Room 20th

Charles is in the living room reading a book about gay Hollywood stars (with its Lesbian sequel at hand). Pure trash. But with my particular weaknesses I think it charming. So I thought I’d add another fillip to my journal.

Pretty blank few days. The chief interest of my last couple of days is the pimples on my butt. Now there’s an uningratiating topic (maybe they are insect bites). But not being able to sit comfortably can be a riveting preoccupation.

Historians of used bookselling may want to take note that Tuesday is the 20th anniversary of Books Do Furnish A Room. We’ll be having a sale next weekend (we need the money otherwise it’d pass as unnoted as birthdays and Christmas).

Having spent the last twenty years doing what I want, being rude or kind to who I want, fucking off if I please is my maturity’s greatest blessing. When faced with a rude cretin there’s no “Yes Sir” instead it is “Get the fuck out of my store!”

A couple of times annoyed petty people have asked me the name of the manager. I tell them to speak to Richard Evans Lee. They deflate when they ask my name.

I don’t suffer under a mean or his sometimes worse variant incompetent boss.

The biggest pain is that I don’t make much money. Anybody with a decent white-collar job makes more. That didn’t matter much until I bought the house with Charles. And free books and CDs is no mean perk.

But I’d never suffered much from brutal of unable employers. I didn’t hesitate to quit, once after two hours.

And for many years I was a practicing lily of the field. The good of luck of having tolerant and kind friends. Or people with schemes and dreams they thought I could help them with.

Intermittently I’d work as a market research interviewer on a catch-as-catch-can basis. You could sign up for four hour shifts. To be honest there were a few times when I’d work eighty or so hours a week.

At the end in San Francisco I became a salaried ‘Field Services Supervisor’ at a small research company. The only regular job I’ve ever had for any length of time.

I sometimes wonder what I’d do if the bookshop failed. Murder myself? Probably not if I were still with Charles. But I’m not sure. What would be my alternative? Become one of those old men who do menial jobs at chain stores?

I don’t have any saleable skills. Maybe ten years ago I could’ve gotten a computer related job. But I don’t have the cash to play with them anymore and my skills have atrophied. (I keep hoping somehow to get another computer so I can play with Linux again. Haven’t since the pre-1.0 kernel.)

That is why I don’t smoke pot anymore. It always makes me think of cancer and poverty. Well, actually I don’t smoke pot because when Charles does he becomes dangerously wacky. But pot does make me drift into insane fears.

Damnifiknow what caused that morbid bit to pop out. I’m in a cheerful mood tonight.